The emissions benefits of the smart grid are difficult to quantify because the answer depends on how enabling technologies function within the system. Estimates in the literature (see figure from NRDC’s issue brief below) vary both in magnitude and in source of emission abatement: electric vehicles displacing oil consumption, price transparency stimulating conservation, enhanced energy efficiency reducing energy consumption, or renewable energy displacing conventional fuels through increased system flexibility.

These sources of carbon abatement can all contribute to the benefits that smart grid technologies deliver, but without careful program design and without well elaborated metrics for success, we risk leaving these benefits on the table.

If one goal of smart grid deployment is to use demand side flexibility to facilitate faster deployment and cheaper integration of variable resources like wind and solar, the metrics that evaluate smart grid program success should be designed around those outcomes: grid flexibility, variable resource capacity value or the carbon intensity of electricity delivered to customers. Failing to do so would risk forfeiting the potential benefits of smart grid deployment, for example through uncoordinated planning or deployment of infrastructure that lacks the capability to provide flexibility on the relevant timescales.

It’s not enough to count the number of meters installed or to simply measure peak load reductions as a way of gauging program success. Metrics must be aligned with desired outcomes and smart grid deployment programs should be integrated with energy efficiency and renewable energy programs and targets. Only by drawing these links and making them explicit can the environmental benefits of the smart grid be realized.

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Switchboard is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s most effective environmental group. For more about our work, including in-depth policy documents, action alerts and ways you can contribute, visit NRDC.org.